Archives | Luminita Gheorghiu

Gabita is pregnant, abortion is strictly forbidden in Romania during the communist regime. Despite this it is common practice and Gabita wants an abortion. The movie follows her and her friend Otilia during the day she has made the appointment with Mr. Bebe to have the abortion.

A Romania-set, based-on-a-true-story tale that follows Alina, a young woman who returns to her home country after living in Germany and reunites with a friend that she has known for years since their childhood in the same orphanage. The friend now lives in a rural Orthodox monastery, and turns down Alina’s request to come back with her to Germany, having found a family with the nuns and priests. From here, we won’t spoil it, but the story takes a dramatic turn that eventually involves a police investigation. [Synopsis via The Playlist]

An apartment kitchen: a man and a woman discuss Little Red Riding Hood, their voices hushed, mindful of waking the little girl sleeping next room. Waste land on the city outskirts: behind a line of abandoned trailers, the man silently watches what seems to be a family. The same city, the same man: driving through traffic with two hand-made firing pins for a hunting rifle. The man is 42 years old, his name – Viorel. Troubled by obscure thoughts, he drives across the city to a destination known only to him.

Child’s Pose is a contemporary drama focusing on the relationship between a mother and her 32-year-old son. After the accidental killing of a boy in a car crash, the mother tries to prevent her son being charged for the death, and she refuses to accept that her son is a grown-up man.

A moving parable about late-feudal Europe developed from historical documents and songs: its power structures and hierarchies, people’s idea of themselves and others, interaction with minorities and the resulting conflicts. A Balkan Western in black-and-white which brings the cacophony of the times strikingly to life and explores the thematic arcs which stretch into the present. [Synopsis courtesy of Berlinale]